


the end is the beginning

by girlsarewolves



Category: The Mummy (2017), The Mummy Series
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dark, Creepy Ships, F/F, Femslash, POV Second Person, horror femslash, nonlinear, there is no Nick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-28
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-11-16 11:14:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11251980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlsarewolves/pseuds/girlsarewolves
Summary: It starts with a voice that sounds so much like your own curiosity but the words are all wrong - they are foreign and old and not yours though you understand them all the same - telling you, begging you, commanding you; 'Let me out. Take me with you. Release me. Come to me.'History has always called to you. Mysteries and horrors long forgotten are why you have this job. But there is something wrong with this place - this tomb that should not exist where it exists - and for a moment you almost falter. Part of you thinks, 'Flee. Get everyone out of here. Tell Henry to let the prison doors remain locked and let sleeping demons lie.'You hear it over the soldiers' radios; you have hours, if that.It starts with you cutting the rope.





	the end is the beginning

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't really care for the new movie, but Sofia Boutella was amazing if underused and wasted, and there was definitely some creepy femslash potential in there that I just had to play with. Half of this was written during the first few hours of the am and half was written today on not enough sleep and to distract from grief of losing one of our cats, so it's kind of a mess, but hopefully it's an interesting mess? Feedback definitely appreciated. :)
> 
> (Also, the parts of this I think are the best were written while listening to Invocation Array's 'With Me' which would make good mood music to listen while reading this, I think.)

* * *

If you are honest with yourself, this is what you want.  
  
Her fingers on your skin; her lips at your ear, whispering oaths in an ancient tongue that sounds uncertain coming out of your mouth when you whisper back.  
  
This - her - this is what you want.  
  
Her hair a curtain around both your faces; her body on top of yours, pinning you to the earth like an anchor while she makes your blood sing.  
  
The sharp pain that follows after, the tickle of warm liquid spilling from the wound she's inflicted, the struggle to stay there and not be swallowed whole by darkness and agony, this is not what you want.  
  
She smiles; 'Let it happen,' she whispers. 'It will be over soon - and then you will be mine. For all eternity,' she promises.  
  
And you close your eyes and let it come - because that, that is what you want.  
  


* * *

  
This is not how it starts. This is the end. But there is always a beginning.

* * *

  
It starts a week ago, with a map and coordinates from Henry, surrounded by sand and danger and the thrill of a new discovery getting you through the heat of the days and keeping you awake at night.  
  
It starts in a tomb that should not exist, not out there, surrounded by military and prying eyes and a small crew who know how to handle both. You have hours, maybe a few days if you're lucky, to find what you're searching for.  
  
It starts with a voice that sounds so much like your own curiosity but the words are all wrong - they are foreign and old and not yours though you understand them all the same - telling you, begging you, commanding you; 'Let me out. Take me with you. Release me. Come to me.'  
  
History has always called to you. Mysteries and horrors long forgotten are why you have this job. But there is something wrong with this place - this tomb that should not exist where it exists - and for a moment you almost falter. Part of you thinks, 'Flee. Get everyone out of here. Tell Henry to let the prison doors remain locked and let sleeping demons lie.'  
  
You hear it over the soldiers' radios; you have hours, if that.  
  
It starts with you cutting the rope.  
  


* * *

  
This is not really the beginning. Not out here, so far from Egypt; for you, perhaps, but not for her. This started long before the first known branches of your family tree were saplings.  
  


* * *

  
You could swear you see her staring at you through her sarcophagus; the empty, gaping sockets staring back at you like the abyss.  
  
She is beautiful. You don't know that. But you know.  
  
'You have freed me, my chosen,' she whispers, no sound coming from the open mouth of the sarcophagus. 'I thank you.'  
  
"Jenny, you okay?"  
  
You aren't sure what it is you say, but it seems good enough. They leave you be, focus on the task at hand, on getting out of there with the find. You know they keep glancing at you though; you know that they've likely already somehow sent word back to Henry.  
  
You know that he'll be waiting. You screwed up; you're not sure if you can really put the blame on her, either. You were never going to leave without her, even if she hadn't already somehow gotten inside your head.  
  
'I will show you all the things I have seen,' she promises as you look over the hieroglyphs telling her story, somehow recording it all despite the visions and voice in your head. You're standing beside her sarcophagus - and then you're standing beside her, watching her smile, frozen still as her blue-tipped fingers cup your face. 'All of the horrors and all of the wonders. All of the mysteries of the beyond, you will know.'  
  
You're frozen still, staring at the sarcophagus as one of the others shakes you gently, asks if you're alright.  
  
"No," you hear yourself say. And you're not sure you'll be alright again.  
  


* * *

  
No, this isn't how your part of the story starts.  
  
It starts at five, when your mother brings you with her work at the museum over summer. It starts when you spend your days surrounded by death - the death of languages, religions, entire civilizations.  
  
It starts with wide eyes staring at shriveled remains that were once people, walking, breathing, living.  
  


* * *

  
Or maybe it starts at fifteen, when your best friend presses her mouth against yours - all nervous lips and fingers on your cheeks - and you finally knew what it was like to be alive.  
  
It starts when you lay in bed, tangled up in her, your blood singing with fear and excitement, and nothing else mattered outside that room. It starts when she leaves you months later, when she won't look at you or say your name, and everyone whispers all around you.  
  
It starts when you run to the sanctuary of death and remembrance where your mother used to take you over summer months, and you replace the warmth of her with the need for knowledge, for understanding of ancient places and long lost peoples.  
  


* * *

  
No, it starts with a discovery of an absence, a theory discussed with growing fervor and belief over drinks with Henry. It starts with a chase for clues that slowly build up, of another meant to be forgotten, erased - thoroughly, fervently, far more than the likes of Akhenaten or Hatshepsut.  
  
It starts with dreams of a hidden figure in the desert and a voice calling to you, whispering your name and setting your skin on fire; 'Come and find me. Release me.'  
  
This is the beginning. You have not felt so alive since you were fifteen.  
  


* * *

  
You feel alive when you're tossed through the air as the plane hurls towards the ground, surrounded by shouts and screams and panic - and you're convinced you won't be alive much longer, the quiet, amused laughing in your head seeming to back that belief.  
  
Death is closer and closer, but she whispers, 'I will give you eternal life,' and then you see it, a parachute flying by, just within reach, and you somehow strap in, as if your movements aren't your own, and when the side of the plane is torn up and you're sent soaring, you make it. You pull the chute and you survive - and she whispers, 'My chosen, did you think I would abandon you?'  
  
And you crumple to your hands and knees, and the ground doesn't destroy your body as you shake, as everything inside comes rushing out.  
  


* * *

  
Only two others survive.  
  
Henry comes out to collect you himself. He's all sympathy and condolences, and you wonder if he's talking about the plane crash at all. He wants to take you back to London, to Prodigium headquarters, as fast as possible; 'For your own good.'  
  
You see her, waiting for you outside a church. You know what she wants, and it feels like blasphemy to see her on holy ground, even though you have always been superstitious but never religious.  
  
"Yes," you say. "Let's go."  
  


* * *

  
They don't find her. She finds you.  
  
'Come to me,' she whispers - demands - begs.  
  
They don't let you, even when you try, even when you say you need to go home and collect some things, and you mean to, but your feet were going to obey her mental commands, not your own.  
  
'Come to me, my chosen.'  
  
But you can't. You don't want to, you don't want this; you don't want to die, and you don't want Henry to treat you like you're now one of their oddities, not one of their brightest and most devoted members.  
  
'We will live for all eternity, side by side. The world will be ours,' she promises.  
  
"They've found the stone," Henry tells you. He sounds almost regretful. "When I sent you out there, I never thought...I didn't want this for you."  
  
"But here we are."  
  
"Yes," Henry agrees, and he pats your shoulder as he walks past you to look out the window, waiting. "Here we are."  
  
You feel like you're still on that plane, waiting for impact and for everything to go black, to find whatever is waiting for you on the other side. You wonder if it will be Anubis, waiting with his scale and his feather - and you laugh, because deep down, your heart could never match that feather.  
  


* * *

  
You have lived eternities with her in your dreams. You aren't even sure where your own obsession with her mystery and the shame of hiding who you really are ends and her corruption of your mind begins.  
  
You start to wonder - were the dreams always her?  
  
No. If you're honest with yourself, you know it's not that simple. You let yourself become enraptured with her. You let your fascination become something dangerous, all-consuming.  
  
It has always been easy to fall in love with women who seem out of reach. There is a safety in loving women who belong to history and death. You have loved Hatshepsut and Nefertiti and Ankhesenamun and Sobekneferu and countless others, but they were silent and cold and gone, all of them.  
  
Ahmanet is desert heat; she has been violent as the winds of a sandstorm since you first discovered the broken remains of her name in one of Henry's artifacts and through the search for more, through the discovery of the crusaders' tomb, through the discovery of her prison, up to this very moment of standing on the edge of the abyss.  
  
She has always stared back at you from that darkness. But you know that you willingly let her in.  
  


* * *

  
Prodigium thought they were prepared for her - but Ahmanet comes at them like a force of nature that cannot be reckoned with.  
  
You manage to slip out, running who knows where, but you know you have to get away - from Henry, from Prodigium, but most importantly from her, from all the things you want her to do to you that you aren't completely convinced is just her messing with your head.  
  
So you run. You'll run forever if you have to. Anything to stay alive; anything to escape the ground rushing up towards you.  
  


* * *

  
You don't want to die. You wonder if this is how she felt, trapped in that sarcophagus, unable to move and losing oxygen and surrounded by darkness; knowing the inevitable was coming and there was nothing to stop it.  
  
Everybody dies; you know this. Part of you has always wondered what happens beyond that door, but not like this. Not at this cost.  
  
'Come to me, my love,' she calls.  
  
"I don't want to die!" You scream, lost somewhere below ground, you aren't even sure where - you think you're heading to the crusaders' crypt, where she wants you to be and where you desperately do not want to go. "I don't want to die!"  
  
"You will not," Ahmanet says, voice coming from behind, and when you turn she's there, really there, only meters away, and her words are slow, strange - English, you realize, she's speaking English now. "I was never going to kill my chosen. I loved him. I was going to give him a gift. But they took him from me - they took everything."  
  
And then she isn't meters away, she's centimeters, so close you should feel her body heat, and her hands are on your face, in your hair, her eyes meeting yours, piercing through, and you see - you see her on top of her lover, you see her shaking in fear in the presence of Set, you see her watching the birth of her brother and the death of her future, you see the blood of her father, his wife, his son, on the blade, poised above her lover's chest.  
  
"He would have become a living god, but now, now it is you who will receive that honor." She presses her mouth to yours, and you remember - you remember when you first felt alive, but this is so much more. "We will be gods on this earth, and it will be ours."  
  
You know that there is suffering and bloodshed in that promise; Ahmanet is without a kingdom and so she must conquer herself a kingdom, and you - Set - will help her if she gets what she wants.  
  
And what she wants - is you.  
  
It is intoxicating and terrifying, and you want it. You tell yourself you don't, but it is a lie.  
  


* * *

  
This is what you want. Her fingers on your skin, her lips at your ear.  
  
The pain that follows, the blood spilling out and the darkness creeping in, those are not things you want, but you can't stop them, you never could.  
  
She smiles; 'Let it happen. It will be over soon.'  
  
And it is. Everything goes black.  
  


* * *

  
This is not how it ends.  
  


* * *

  
Your eyes open; the first thing you see is her, and you remember the sweet taste of her prayers conjuring you forth, her blood mixed with milk and honey, and the dedication in her offerings.  
  
You remember coming into being, a god of magic and might too much for this world to bear the strain of, and you remember being born of flesh and blood.  
  
There is ancient power in you now, invading you, taking over, like floodwaters rushing forth and filling up every nook and cranny, until you cannot tell what is Set and what is Jenny, but you see her uncertain eyes, the hesitancy in her body, and you reach for her, pulling her to you so you can taste her again.  
  
You know what awaits beyond the veil and what power truly feels like; you know what lurks in the darkness and the underworld, the awful true faces of gods and monsters - and you know what she feels like on top of you, under you, all around you.  
  
This is what you want.  
  


* * *

  
You will live together and rule, side by side, forever. The world will tremble at your feet.  
  
This is how it starts.


End file.
